Every parent has been there. All green foods have become more terrifying than the monster under the bed, and you start to wonder: can my kiddo really get the nutrients he needs subsisting off of peanut butter and crackers alone? And then you hatch a brilliant plan: hiding the veggies! If they can't see them, they'll eat them and there will be no fighting! #winning??? But hiding veggies in kids' food actually prevents kids from developing a genuine love for all things vegetable.

But, it turns out that hiding carrot purees in brownies is actually not the best way to help your little in the long term. In the short term, it may help ensure that your child is ingesting more diverse nutrients, which of course is great.

3 reasons kids don't like eating vegetables:

And in order to overcome pesky human nature, kids have to be exposed to a new food many times in order to like it (as many as 20 times, according to some experts). When you "hide" a veggie or fruit, that's one less chance your mini will have to try and gain a genuine love for a new food. Also, if they ever figure out your sneaky ways, they'll think that veggies are SO BAD that you have to pretend they're not there in order to eat them.

It's not that adding veggies to mac and cheese is a bad thing, in fact it's delicious! You just want to make sure that kids have some visual evidence of the vegetable they're eating so that they can start to make the connection that veggies = delicious and not something to fear.

Image via Joanna Slodownik on Flickr

3 Tips to boost nutrition without "hiding" veggies:

Serve a pureed ingredient alongside its whole version. If the scrambled eggs have pureed cauliflower in them, also serve some raw, roasted, or sautéed cauliflower. And tell your kiddo that there's cauliflower in the eggs too.

Make a veggie toppings bar. For tacos, pasta, baked potatoes, grain bowls, pizza, and other easily modified meals, serve several veggie toppings your child can choose from. Your child is more likely to try a new veggie if they've chosen to add it themselves.

Cook the meal with your child. Let them see what ingredients go into the meal. A great example of this tactic is smoothies- it's fun for kids to add ingredients, and they can get instant feedback that spinach does not make something gross. For bonus points, taste each raw ingredient before you add it to the smoothie.

What do you think? Still tempted to sneak in some extra greens? Willing to make veggies the star of the meal? Any other strategies that work for your family? Let us know in the comments!

About the Author

Ashley Moulton is the Founder and Nomster-in-Chief of Nomster Chef. She's got a M.A. in Learning, Design and Technology from Stanford's Graduate School of Education, and loves helping kids learn about food. She would describe herself as an om-nom-nomnivore, and her favorite veggies to nom are mushrooms.

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